Special Immigrants

 It only takes one car accident to ruin your life as you know it. That could deplete your accounts, make you unable to work, dependent on disability and on your friends and family for care. Or it could take one short bout in prison for you to lose your job, your lease, or your house, and maybe even some of your dearest friends who can't support you as a matter of principle. Because now you've been in trouble with the law.

Let's start to assume that people who have been in prison may have been there for good reasons. I'm going to assume that about you. Would you please assume that about me? And would you please make sure my kids are okay? I'll look out for yours, too.

There are suddenly a lot of good reasons to go to jail, prison, a detention facility. Maybe you spoke out against the Trump Regime deporting American citizens. Maybe you tried to hide immigrants from ICE. Maybe you helped someone that the President said was not a human, but you don't call humans animals. Humans are not animals. Maybe you called for an end to the genocide in Gaza. Maybe you called so loud that people started to look for reasons to make you be quiet. But you can't be quiet, because people aren't animals. As an aside: animals also should not be deprived of food and water.

This morning, I sat next to a woman who had to leave Afghanistan because the Taliban was threatening her family. They had sided with the US in some way during the US occupation, and now she could not leave the house without facing certain danger. They fled to Pakistan, where they could not legally work. What were they supposed to do? It was the TALIBAN. Remember them? Beards, guns, extreme religious beliefs about gender and patriarchy, they ride around in the backs of pick-ups trying to pick fights and intimidate people with violence all in the name of God. 

Are you asking me if she was immigrating legally to Pakistan when she was being pursued by the TALIBAN, running for her life? Of course not! But Pakistan made life hard for immigrants, and they sometimes cooperate with the Taliban. So she had to keep going, keep searching for safe haven. And now they are here in the USA, the place they sacrificed so much for while living in their own country. 

"It's good here," she said, "Not like Afghanistan, with the Taliban." Oh, how I wanted to agree with her. A strange presentiment crept over me, that we have a parallel to the Taliban and it's growing in popularity. Instead of infidels, people are looking for illegals. Instead of men gathering together in the backs of pick-up trucks with their guns, riding around looking for infidels, we have...